Can you use your brain itself to defeat Alzheimer’s?

Keep your body healthy with a good diet and plenty of exercise and you should live a good long life. But that should be just a part of your plan…

There’s something else you can do to ensure quality of life well into your golden years—and you have everything you need to start right now.

As we live longer, the chances of developing dementia increase. It’s not aging itself, but the lifestyles we lead and a bit of heredity.

Researchers have concluded that, by far, the biggest aid in keeping dementia and Alzheimer’s disease at bay is regular exercise such as walking or biking daily.

But new studies are expanding on that definition of exercise where your brain is concerned.

Exercising the brain is just as important to staying in good shape as you age. And doing so can be as simple as singing your favorite tune.

Research just published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease showed that patients already suffering the early stages of age-related dementia were able to reverse symptoms simply by singing.

For their study, the researchers evaluated a group of dementia patients who underwent regular therapy involving singing or even just listening to familiar songs.

Remarkably, the researchers observed improvement in the patients’ cognitive skills. They had better memory and mental flexibility. They also noted that the musical activities lifted symptoms of depression from the patients’ minds.

“Our findings suggest that musical leisure activities could be easily applied and widely used in dementia care and rehabilitation. Especially stimulating and engaging activities, such as singing, seem to be very promising for maintaining memory functioning in the early stages of dementia,” Dr. Teppo Särkämö at the University of Helsinki, who led the study, said.

The reason that singing and other music therapies help patients in early stages of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is neuroplasticity.

What does that mean? When you exercise your brain by recalling the words to a song or reciting a poem or prayer, you help portions of the brain grow which can compensate for reduced activity in other regions.

Researchers observe high levels of neuroplasticity in people who are bilin­gual, musicians and those who extensively study abstract information. So while singing can be an easy way to exercise your brain, learning a new language or skill can also be beneficial and rewarding ways to stay sharp as you age.

Should you spend every waking moment singing or studying? You could—but you probably don’t need to. Just make an effort to sing instead of doing other activities that usually put your brain on autopilot, or while doing other exercises or menial tasks.